BLOOPERS  Part 1                                     

This is what we call ventilation

Once way back when I first stared camping in my adult life, I was camping in the Utah Mountains. I bought a Coleman one-burner stove for coffee and cooking food.  As I read the directions a loud to my lady friend I was camping with, noting that the stove must be used with adequate ventilation and kept away from flammable surfaces. A day or two later early in the morning in a light snow she when to the car to warm up.  While I made a cup of coffee I noticed that the tent was warming up, so I let the burner go for a while longer.  Next thing I know a 6’ diameter hole melted in the upper sidewall.  About this time my lady friend is coming back to the tent and see’s the hole.  “What is that?” As she see’s my face looking out the hole?  The only thing I could think to say was, “Remember the part in the directions about ventilation?” She responds “yes.”  I say, “well that’s ventilation if you ever see it again you'll know what it looks like.”  We taped up the hole until we could replace the tent.

Do not use fossil fuel Stoves in tight tents and keep them away from the walls.

Ant Hill in Yosemite

On a dark storm night the dark, we pitched a Tent and set up camp just outside Yosemite Nation Park.  We had a great dinner and celebrated the orderly set up and anticaping our adventure in Yosemite the next day with a couple of Pina Colodas.  We headed off to bed Pina Coladas in tow.  Well the first thing I do after getting settled is spill my Pina Coloda.  No real big deal, I cleaned it up pretty well.  Every thing was fine till just after first light in the morning, only to awake to her yelling and screaming and jumping all over the tent having some sort of fit.  Then I realized that she was being attacked by hundreds of ants, I mean hundreds.  By this time she outside the tent removing clothing and still is jumping around. Kinda made me wonder how she could do both at the same time.  I got the ants off of her but that wasn’t easy as she was still jumping all around.  Then got her a towel form the truck until I could find her cloths.  I removed every thing from the tent and cleaned it up.

Turned the tent inside out, hosed it, dried it and repitched it on a new location.  In the dark and in the rain the night before, I didn’t know I pitched the tent on an anthill.  The Pina Coloda was a sweet dinner bell.  This all happened so early in the morning I don’t think anybody saw anything or at lease nobody said anything as we were there 4-5 days.  Ya know I could never figure out why theses ants didn’t go after me. Not one bite and no ants on me until I starting helping her.

Try not to pitch after dark and never on an anthill.

The Highway from Hell

This is how we spend really hot days in the summer, floating down the Shenandoah River falling in when ever it’s convenientor just playing in the rapids.  This was such a day only that we had to pull off the river a little early as we had to meet up with friends and go to a concert that night not far away.  When we arrived at the take out.  I discover I do not have keys to the jeep.  You know that sinking feeling that I might have lost those keys on the river.  Well, after confessing my indiscression, I knew I had extra set of keys up river 8 miles at the put in, in my van.  I figured I would hitch hike back get the keys, simple, just a minor delay.  She decided to walk with me as misery loves company. She could have hung out staying cool in that rapids we just pulled out at.  First we had a walk several miles up this dirt farm road to the highway to get a ride.  We stashed our boats in some tall weeds and head out.  The radio said the temperature was 106 degrees.  We walked about ½ mile up a fairly steep hill, with very little shade, then a very long walk to the high way with very little shade, taking breaks where we could.  At the highway, a nice lady who felt sorry for us picked us almost right away hitch hiking a hot day.  She dropped us off several towns up the road.  Then, we got picked up by a young person who drove over winding country roads at a very high speed.  It scared the stuffing’s out of us, we’re thinking just a couple of more miles and we are there.  We get there and as I open the door to my van the keys I thought I lost were laying on the floorboard.  They had fall out of my pocket.  All is well that ends well.  Later back at camp and discussing the day I asked my new girl friend now my wife.  “How do you like me now?”  She responded, “You do make life interesting and only you can turn such a disaster into an adventure, but you never lost your cool or your sense of humor.  I think this was the hottest day in my life walking up that hill on the “Highway from Hell””.  That’s what we nicked named that over grown farm road.

Always put your water keys into something that floats and is retrievable.

Having Fun in the face of disaster or the White Horse Washout

We put in at Bakerton, WVA. Outside of Harper Ferry at the top of the Potomac Needles for a 5-day trip to Point of Rocks, MD.  The Needles is a ½ mile class 1 rapid with ledges lots of difficult tight turns.  There are few breaks with a loaded canoe and at the bottom there is a class ll drop shoot about 75 yards long with large hydraulics waves at the bottom.  We handled most of this with moderate to great difficulty; the loaded canoe was very cumbersome and made a lot of the tight turns difficult.  However, we made it thru totally wet from sweat.  At the bottom we went swimming then ate lunch.

 We moved on as we passed Butts Beach we were floating sideways in a good current  but no rapids.  I was fixing something in the back, while Terry was checking something up front.  Nobody watching down river, when all of a sudden the canoe pitch up high on the down streamside and over we went.  The canoe was lodged on its side facing up stream and cross stream with the current flowing into and out of the canoe on a  large boulder just slightly above water.  To get the water out of the canoe we had to flip the canoe with water over up onto the rock.  We righted the canoe as soon as possible draining the water as we were throwing the lose stuff back in the canoe.  We were able the retrieve everything but my fishing box which contained our fishing licenses.  Too much lead and to fast a current it was gone.   We recovered our selves as flipping a loaded canoe full of water slowly to allow water to drain takes a lot of strength.  We had a discussion on why either of us wasn’t looking down river to see a boulder the size of our Jeep sticking up out of the water.  The river was at least a third of a mile wide and we hit the only rock in the river in over a half a mile.  What, did we hit the rock lottery?

  After a good rest we launch again and about a mile down river we are approaching another class ll called Mad Dog.  We assumed our white water positions in the canoe, low on our knees.  The white water position has two purposes. First your are low and lower your center of gravity. Second if you need divine intervention your already in the position to ask.  We past right on thru taking on a little water from high waves. 

 The water is swift and leads into a class lll White Horse even with the water we had taken on we lined up the canoe for our run.  Hit the channel perfect and we crashed thru doing well then the waves came.  We bashed thru one sending bow spray 6 - 7 feet into the air, then another, and another each time taking on water by the time we sorta bashed thru the last maybe 10 altogether I’m waste deep in water and Terry is outside the canoe trying to swim the bow to shore while I slip out to help because I feel like I’m paddling a bath tub full of water.  Our feet finally hit bottom and we are now in the calm water below the rapid.  We walk the canoe to shore and once again we had to flip the canoe up on its side to dump out the water.  Whether it happened during the flip near Butts Beach or the swamp out in White House our stuff was soaked.  Every thing, sleeping bags, clothes, tent, everything is soaked with water running out.  With all the water drained out of the canoe I figure we added at least a 100 –150 lb or more of wet stuff to our pack weight.

 The sky is starting to darken in the distance with a low rumble so once again we push off to head to a bunch of islands just south of the Potomac River Rt. 340 Bridge to set up camp for the night.   We cross the river under the bridge and enter the islands channel.  The storm is moving closer a we know soon it will be raining.  We spot a nice clearing at the edge of the woods with a low bank at the lower tip of one of the islands, perfect. We headed for it, landed and did a quick check out, good enough. 

 We unloaded most of the stuff out of the canoe, flipped and tied it.  Then we started to set up the fly.  The rain was starting lightly, Terry set the fire ring and I went for wood, lots of wood as we had some serious drying out to do.  By the time I had most of the wood in Terry had a fire going and some things drying on lines that criss-crossed under the tarp. Our packs were lined with heavy duty trash bags, later we found that they leaked and prevented water from draining from inside the bags.We had to wring out our sleeping bags before we could hang them.  The tent dried in no time at all and our clothes a little later. By now it was a pouring down rain, but our tent was dry and pitched with the front just under the tarp so we could come and go without getting wet.  It took several hours before the sleeping bags were dry and by 9:00 everything was dry.  We had a late dinner; by the way our food was ok. We had the since to double pack that.  We went to sleep early, as we were exhausted. We stayed over the next day feeling a little stiff from the first days adventure or disasters.

 The third morning we packed up and headed down river.  About noon or so we come up on our last big rapid, a class two.  Drops about 15-20 feet over a rocky staircase about 40 feet wide with plenty of water. However, the bottom channel narrows very quickly creating course changes in the hydraulics at the bottom to hit the channel.  Exciting enough but there’s a fisherman standing in the middle of the 10 foot wide channel fishing downstream.  We yell as we are now traveling at a high rate of speed in a loaded canoe smashing thru the hydraulics.  He just waves us thru not even looking to see what’s coming.  We go flying by him maybe 8-10 miles per hour missing him by a just few feet.  For us that way to fast, with to much weight and too close but we didn’t see the narrow channel until we started down the staircase, beyond the point of no return.

 The remainder of our trip was much more placid with a few rock gardens here and there.  We pulled out at Point of Rocks, Maryland.

 The interesting point of this story is how much fun you can have while everything is going wrong.  You need a sense of humor and need to be flexible and adjust to what ever the river throws at you.  What we learned from this trip was we had too much stuff, too light of a canoe, and the value of dry bags.  Tying everything down that you don’t want to lose is also helpful.  Several years later we retired our Old Town 15’ 9” and picked up a Mad River 17, longer, taller sides, and a higher bow for busting thru big hydraulics.

The Adventures of a Tube Reader

 At times we would spend a lot of time at Harper Ferry WVA.  We have a primitive camping spot we go to on the Shenandoah River just outside Harpers Ferry.  Very inexpensive but no frills, riverside camping with a Johnny on the Spot, that’s it for $5.00 a night.  This spot happens to be the same distance to where I worked as from home.  So we put two and two together made a camp shower and I would commute from camp to work and back.  It’s a matter of attitude, after work I would rather have a fishing rod in my hand and a cold beer on the Shenandoah, than a lawn mower to drown out the road traffic.

 My wife would hang out around camp keeping her self-busy with what ever she felt like doing.  She loves reading and on one hot day she thought she would hangout in an intertube in the river and stay cool and read.  The part of the river we camp on is very slow and almost a mile or so before anything hazardous.  She floated around and read and after awhile she fell asleep. She later awoke to the roaring sound of serious rapids. She looked around to find herself just in front of the main channel leading into an unnavigable class III/IV rapid.  Millville rapid has very narrow channels with multiple tight turns, like about 15-20, that are often blocked with logs and this goes on for a more than quart of a mile.  We know this rapid as we once tried it.

 Upon seeing her predicament she hauled you know what out of their fighting serious current.  Another minute she didn’t think she could have pulled out.  Reaching shore nearly exhausted and not looking forward to the mile and a half walk by road back to camp.

 From this time on she tied off on a branch on a tree leaning way out over the river just in case she drifts off to sleep again as she loves to do.

The moral to this story anchor or tie off to something in moving water to nap.

 Why did we once try Millville Rapid, because it was there for the lack of a better reason?  Or it might be because we did a 5 day camping trip down the upper New River Gorge in WVA the Grand Canyon of the east on sit on top kayaks.  Twenty-one rapids in 9 miles and still feeling a little bullet proof.  It was very unpleasent, we were constantly wedged into creves and had to pull over logjams.  It was a rough trip and was not fun but we did it, but we won't do it again.  The turns are just two tight.

                                                   New River Preview 

 Ok we packed and are ready for the adventure of our lifetime.  We drove 7 hours to get here and we arrive at a place called Sand Cliffs WVA.  We set up a base camp and started driving around to learn the area. We check out the Rafting outfitters for river maps while they check us out as we had very different boats. On the river in this area they use rafts, canoes, and kayaks but had never seen sit on top kayaks before. A few guides had seen pictures in magazines but not up close.  Now you think this would have been our first clue about what’s wrong about our adventure. For the next day or so we check out the gorge and a Park Ranger station for any information on the upper gorge.  They gave us a map with 7 marked rapids of the upper gorge. We set our plans and where to camp and what gear to take. The next morning we would set out to the put in at Prince some 9 miles up river.

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Chuck Milburn